


A Theory of Quantum Mechanics

by Culumacilinte



Category: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 20:31:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Culumacilinte/pseuds/Culumacilinte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Guildenstern is bothered, and past lives are invented.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Theory of Quantum Mechanics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kohaku1977](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kohaku1977/gifts).



Fact the first: A road may go on eternally with no end, if the direction of its travel is a circle. In this way, a traveller might journey for days, months, years, and yet never make any progress. As they say- it's in the journey, not the destination.

Fact the second: There are two men on a road leading to somewhere. We know where somewhere is, but they don't, and it would hardly do to give it away this early in the game.

Fact the third: A coin spun enough times, landing heads each consecutive time, will eventually result in the coin no longer being spun. Some anomalies get old and frustrating fast.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'Doesn't it bother you?' asks a man on horseback. His companion looks to him, expression bemused, ingenuous.

'What?'

'We were talking about it the other day,' snaps the first man, a little impatient. He's fairer than the other man, but harder about the face, his eyes sharp. 'About how we can't remember.'

The softer, darker man shakes his head, and his horse blows air between its lips, a whuffle of sound that fails to introduce anything into the conversation. 'Can't remember.'

'You can't remember.'

'We talk about lots of things,' he shrugs. 'How can you expect me to remember all of them?'

'_Rosencrantz_-'

'Guildenstern!' He's on the cue as if it was scripted, and Guildenstern- for that, of course, is the first man's name, bristles.

'Rosencrantz, _comma_, I was going to say. "Rosencrantz, comma," that was important. We should at least try to remember the important things.'

Rosencrantz looks as though he's trying hard to commit that to memory, and Guildenstern sighs huffily, looking away in irritation. Ignoring him, Rosencrantz keeps his eyes on the road ahead of them as his hands tighten in the reins, urging his horse to the right. It occurs to him after several long moments that he can't remember when he learned to ride. He must have done so at some point, obviously, otherwise this wouldn't be working out nearly as well as it is, but whenever that was is a blank in his memory.

'Memory!' he bursts out delightedly after several long, clip-clopping moments. 'I remember now! Hah, isn't that funny. Forgetting about remembering.'

'Hilarious.' Guildenstern's voice is dry enough to parch.

Despite the fact that Rosencrantz has remembered- or says he has, at least- they fall silent again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fact the first: We have no desires. None.

Fact the second: The previous statement is a lie.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This time the horses have been packed up, put away offstage somewhere out of sight. Presumably they're tied to a tree or a rock, but it doesn't matter. There is firelight from a humble fire lit by the two men, and it flickers orange against Guildenstern's face and his sharp eyes. Around them, the wood- for it is a wood- is silent, save for the occasional rustlings of animals or the sound of the wind; blessedly, there's no noise of music, no flute or drum or anything else. Just them, the rise and fall of Guildenstern's chest, and Rosencrantz's head resting on it, curled up against him like a child against a bad dream. He looks nearly ready for sleep, but Guildenstern pays no heed of that, a line of thought digging itself deeper and deeper between his eyebrows.

'Doesn't it bother you?' he murmurs, his voice low, almost more to himself than anyone else.

Rosencrantz stirs. 'What?'

'We can't remember. We know we're travelling; we are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and we are travelling because we were sent for. Awoken in a certain dawn by a messenger from the King, summoned to the court at Elsinore at all speed.' All of that is certain enough, and Rosencrantz listens with a little frown of his own, nodding as best he can against the other man's chest.

'But what about _before that_?

His voice is tight and anguished, but Rosencrantz just looks confused. He opens his mouth for a moment, like an indecisive guppy, but settles once again on silence, making room for Guildenstern and his thoughts.

'Who _were_ we? Why _can't we remember_? Everyone has a past. Causality demands it; a present cannot exist without a past, therefore we must have had one, individual or collective, but we can't remember it. _I_ can't remember it. We could be anyone. Why should they summon us? Why are we important? We don't know! Why don't we know!?'

'Trauma?' Rosencrantz suggests hopefully after a few long moments of silence, craning his neck to look up at Guildenstern, straining to meet his eyes. As Guildenstern isn't looking down to meet his, he's unsuccessful.

He snorts. 'Do you feel traumatised?'

'Not _particularly_,' concedes Rosencrantz, shifting against the leaves of the forest floor to get a little closer to Guildenstern. 'But you never know.' Their feet knock in front of the fire, and after a moment, grudgingly, one of Guildenstern's arms goes around him, a big hand spread over his bicep, holding him in something that's at least a cousin once removed of a hug.

They fall asleep like that. At least, they think they do, and when they wake up the next day, tangled around each other, there's a certain strange comfort to be had in the just-waking fuzziness that means there's nothing outside the immediate moment, no past or future at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fact the first: There is an old joke beginning 'There are two men on a road.'

Fact the second: It's not a very good joke, so you'd probably be better off not hearing it at all and leaving it to your imagination.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'Let's play a game.'

Guildenstern doesn't even bother to look over at Rosencrantz, whose bright suggestion this is. 'No more coin tossing, please; I don't think I have any left after last time.'

'No! No, no, no-' Rosencrantz is smiling, apparently intensely pleased with himself, and Guildenstern can't help the tiniest twitch of his lips in response. 'No,' he continues, 'I've had an idea. Let's swap stories, as we ride. To help pass the time.'

There's got to me more to his brilliant suggestion than that, and Guildenstern lifts an eyebrow. 'Stories?'

'Yes, about us! Since we can't remember anything about our past, let's swap stories, and see who can come up with the best one.'

'I'm not sure that's strictly _allowed_, making up your own past. Surely there are rules to these sorts of things.'

'I suppose,' says Rosencrantz reasonably. 'But as we haven't got any memories of them, I daresay we're exempt.'

Guildenstern looks like he might have a thing or two to say about the veracity of that particular logic, but he holds his tongue. 'Very well, then,' he allows, and now, possibly unintentionally, he's smiling properly. 'You start.'

'Well...' he starts, but Guildenstern cuts over him before he can start properly.

'Any stories have to be about both of us together.'

Eyebrows go up mildly, and Rosencrantz looks over at him curiously. 'Well, of course. Why wouldn't they be?'

'Well, because we _are_ together, aren't we? And even if I have no specific memories of knowing you previously, I also lack the feeling that I would have were we strangers. Which is to say, though I don't remember it, I _feel_ as if I know you; there's . Furthermore, we were summoned together- "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern"- a pair, a unit, so clearly we are known to be associates by others. Logic dictates.'

Rosencrantz looks a little bemused. 'Logic or not, I don't think I'd be likely to make up a past without you. Why should I want to?'

And logic or not, Guildenstern can't argue with that.

By the time night has fallen, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been emissaries from the Far East, they've been players who couldn't find an audience because Rosencrantz couldn't remember his lines, criminal masterminds with the whole of Denmark in their pockets, they've been childhood friends of Prince Hamlet, shipwrecked sailors from overseas, philosophers- close personal friends of Descartes, women in disguise. Once, very quietly, they were even lovers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fact the first: In 1935, man called Erwin Schrödinger comes up with the analogy of Schrödinger's Cat. A cat, locked in a lead box, with a capsule of cyanide. As long as the box remains closed, there is no way to know whether the cat has been affected by the cyanide and died, or remains alive. Thus, as long as the box remains sealed, the cat is simultaneously both dead and alive. It is only the act of opening the box that causes the cat to be limited to a single possibility.

Fact the second: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have never heard of Erwin Schrödinger.

Fact the third: The theory still applies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When they arrive at the Royal Court at Elsinore, it turns out that they are, in fact, close childhood friends of Hamlet. At least, that's what the king says. It's weirdly disappointing.


End file.
